Download PDF Nordic administrative reforms: lessons for public management 1st edition carsten greve
Nordic Administrative Reforms: Lessons for Public Management 1st Edition Carsten Greve
Visit to download the full and correct content document: https://textbookfull.com/product/nordic-administrative-reforms-lessons-for-public-man agement-1st-edition-carsten-greve/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant download maybe you interests ...
Public Accountability and Health Care Governance: Public Management Reforms Between Austerity and Democracy 1st Edition Paola Mattei (Eds.)
Organizations are the building blocks of governments. The role of organizations, formal and informal, is most readily apparent in public bureaucracy, but all the institutions of the public sector are comprised of organizations, or have some organizational characteristics that affect their performance. Therefore, if scholars want to understand how governments work, a very good place to start is at the level of organizations involved in delivering services. Likewise, if practitioners want to understand how to be effective in the public sector, they would be well-advised to consider examining the role of organizations and how to make organizations more effective. This series publishes research-based books concerned with organizations in the public sector and covers such issues as: the autonomy of public sector organizations; networks and network analysis; bureaucratic politics; organizational change and leadership; and methodology for studying organizations.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/14525
Carsten Greve • Per Lægreid • Lise H. Rykkja Editors
The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature
The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London
A CKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book takes stock of contemporary administrative reforms in the Nordic countries. We ask whether there is a Nordic model of public management reforms that separates the Nordic family of countries from other groups of countries in Europe and if, at the same time, there are major similarities across the five Nordic countries. Reform trends characterized as New Public Management, the Neo-Weberian State, New Public Governance and post-New Public Management are addressed. The traditional Nordic model is used as a benchmark for assessing variation across countries. We examine the institutional features of the Nordic countries, focusing on politicization, autonomy and coordination; the role identities of administrative top-level executives, their public sector values and work motivation; the reform processes, content and trends; the use of different management tools and the perceived effects of reforms, as well as the perceived performance of the public administration. The financial crisis of 2008 played an important part for reforms in many countries, and it is also addressed.
The book is a result of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program research project, Coordination of Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future—COCOPS. The COCOPS project gathered a team of European public administration scholars from 11 universities in 10 countries (Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom) and set out to assess the impact of New Public Management-style reforms in Europe. The project was led by Professor Steven Van de Walle (Erasmus University Rotterdam) and Professor Gerhard Hammerschmid (Hertie School of Governance, Berlin)
and coordinated by the Erasmus University. Many thanks to Steven Van de Walle, Gerhard Hammerschmid and Anca Oprisor for their correspondence, encouragement and backing for a book on the Nordic perspective to public administration reform based on the COCOPS data.
This book draws extensively on the COCOPS executive survey to top level administrative executives in ministries and central agencies conducted during 2012–2014. It is one of the largest online data collections on public sector reform available, covering 7027 top-level public sector executives throughout Europe, including 1907 from the Nordic countries. The sample used for this book contains data from 19 European countries, including all five Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—as well as Austria, Croatia, Estonia, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Portugal, Serbia, Spain, and the UK. The 19 countries represent different administrative traditions—the Nordic, the Anglo-Saxon, the Germanic, the Napoleonic and the East European. An acknowledgement goes to our colleagues in the COCOPS network and their publications on the database which we draw on in this book. More information about the COCOPS project and links to publications can be found on this website: http://www.cocops.eu/.
This book would not have been realized without the support of the Nordic Council of Ministers (Nordic Committee of Senior Officials for Finance) for the ‘Nordic COCOPS Project’ (Project no. 14225). The editors wish to thank all COCOPS partners as well as the Nordic Council of Ministers. Without them this book’s completion would not have been possible. Our thanks also go to the numerous government officials across Europe who graciously shared their knowledge and expertise by answering the questionnaire.
The book has been a joint effort by a Nordic team of seasoned public administration researchers who have contributed to making it a coherent and well-structured monograph: Senior Researcher Niels Ejersbo, Danish Institute for Local and Regional Government (KORA); Professor Carsten Greve, Copenhagen Business School; Professor Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, University of Iceland; Policy Research and Advice Pétur Berg Matthíasson, OECD; Professor Per Lægreid, University of Bergen; Senior Researcher Lise H. Rykkja, UNI Research Rokkan Centre, Bergen; Adjunct Professor Turo Virtanen, University of Helsinki; Associate Professor Helena Wockelberg, Uppsala University; and Associate Professor Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg, Uppsala University.
We wish to thank the Copenhagen Business School, the University of Uppsala and KORA for hosting our book project meetings. Special thanks go to Ulrikke Schill at the Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen for excellent technical assistance in supervising the preparation of the manuscript and to Melanie Newton for very competent language assistance.
June 2016
Frederiksberg, Denmark
Bergen, Norway
1 Introduction: The Nordic Model in Transition 1 Carsten Greve, Per Lægreid, and Lise H. Rykkja
2 Data, Methods, and Some Structural and Individual Characteristics 23
3 Reform Context and Status 37 Carsten Greve and Niels Ejersbo
4 Nordic Administrative Heritages and Contemporary Institutional Design 57 Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg and Helena Wockelberg
and Lise H. Rykkja
7 Relevance of Management Instruments
8 Success in Reforming Administration: What Matters?
Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson, Pétur Berg Matthíasson, and Turo Virtanen
9 Managing the Financial Crisis
Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson and Pétur Berg Matthíasson
10 The Nordic Model Revisited: Active Reformers and High Performing Public Administrations
Carsten Greve, Per Lægreid, and Lise H. Rykkja
L IST OF C ONTRIBUTORS
Niels Ejersbo KORA, Danish Institute for Local and Regional Government Research, Copenhagen, Denmark
Carsten Greve Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
Gunnar Helgi Kristinsson Faculty of Political Science, University of Iceland, Reykjavík, Iceland
Per Lægreid Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
Pétur Berg Matthíasson Directorate for Public Governance and Territorial Development, OECD, Paris Cedex, France
Shirin Ahlbäck Öberg Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
Lise Hellebø Rykkja Uni Research Rokkan Centre, Bergen, Norway
Turo Virtanen Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
Helena Wockelberg Department of Government, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
L IST OF F IGURES
Fig. 1.1
Fig. 6.1 Reform processes by countries and regions. Means
Fig. 6.2 Reform content by countries and regions. Means
Fig. 8.1 Level of administrative autonomy and the perceived success of administrative reforms
Fig. 9.1 Depth of crisis in European countries (product of unemployment and government debt)
Fig. 9.2 Success of reforms and depth of crisis in COCOPS countries
L IST OF T ABLES
Table 2.1 Response rates for central government sample as used throughout this book 27
Table 2.2 Structural characteristics of the COCOPS survey population in percentages 28
Table 2.3 Demographic characteristics of the COCOPS survey population in percentages 30
Table 3.1 Features of the public sectors in the Nordic countries 39
Table 3.2 Public management reform trends in the Nordic countries and international rankings 52
Table 4.1 Politicization in means 67
Table 4.2 Politicization in the Nordic region and sub-regions, subdivided on organizational level in means 68
Table 4.3 Autonomy in different types of decision making in means 70
Table 4.4 Coordination in means 74
Table 4.5 Coordination in the Nordic region and sub-regions, subdivided on organizational level in means 75
Table 5.1 ‘I mainly understand my role as public sector executive as …’ by country groups and Nordic countries in means 86
Table 5.2 ‘Public services often need to balance different positions. Where would you place your own position?’ in means 89
Table 5.3 Work values. Factor analysis 91
Table 5.4 Importance of different work values, by country groups and Nordic countries in means 93
Table 6.1 Reform trends by countries and regions in means 115
Table 6.2 Reform processes, trends and content. Linear regressions standardized Beta coefficients 120
Table 7.1 Index of instruments, Nordic countries. Factor analysis 136
Table 7.2 Use of instruments, by regions in means 138
Table 7.3 Differences in use of management instruments between Nordic countries in means 139
Table 7.4 Management instruments. Linear regression 141
Table 8.1 Perceived success of public sector reforms in European country groups 152
Table 8.2 Correlations of reform trends and perceived success of public sector reforms in European country groups 158
Table 8.3 Factors influencing perceptions of reform success in the Nordic states: Three models of decision making in multiple regression analysis 164
Table 9.1 ‘In response to the fiscal crisis, how would you describe the broader approach to realizing savings in your policy area?’ Percentage
178
Table 9.2 Proportion of respondents maintaining their organization has used manpower cuts, wage cuts and programme cuts to a high degree. Percentage 180
Table 9.3 Crisis consequences in means 182
Table 10.1 General perceived performance development of the public administration the last five years in means 194
Table 10.2 Perceived performance of the public administration on different dimensions over the last five years in means 197
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: The Nordic Model in Transition
Carsten Greve, Per Lægreid, and Lise H. Rykkja
INTRODUCTION
Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden—the Nordic countries—have often been portrayed as efficient, successful economies and democracies with exemplary welfare and security arrangements, and as model states when it comes to government reform. They rank consistently high in well-known indexes such as the World Bank Governance Indicators and the OECD Better Life Index. In 2013, The Economist portrayed the Nordic countries as the “next supermodels” of public sector reform, avoiding both the economic sclerosis of Southern Europe and the extreme inequality of the United States. With his metaphor of “getting
C. Greve ( )
Department of Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark
e-mail: cg.dbp@cbs.dk
P. Lægreid
Department of Administration and Organization Theory, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway
C. Greve et al. (eds.), Nordic Administrative Reforms, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56363-7_1
to Denmark,” Fukuyama (2014) suggested that the world should look to the Nordic countries in order to build prosperous, well-governed, and liberal democracies. In his view, the Nordic combination of a strong state, well-functioning rule of law, and responsible democracy is a useful recipe for good government.
Since the 1990s, more attention has been paid to the importance of governance capacity, the quality of government, and a well-performing administrative apparatus in a bid to understand why some countries are more successful than others in looking after their citizens’ welfare and ensuring a high standard of living (Holmberg and Rothstein 2014). This attention to governance capacity and the related “institutional turn” in public administration research has highlighted the need to “bring the bureaucracy back in” (Olsen 2005, 2008). There are many dimensions of good government. In this book, we explore the nature of the government apparatus and its administrative capability, and address the processes, content, and effects of contemporary administrative reforms.
To grasp what “getting to Denmark” actually means, we need to understand the specific features of the Danish and other Nordic political systems. We explore why the Nordic approach to the public sector has apparently been so successful. We ask if and why other European countries should draw lessons for administrative reform from the Nordic countries. The central research question is whether there really is a specific Nordic reform model and what the main similarities and differences are between the five Nordic countries and between the Nordic countries and the rest of Europe. The book seeks to answer the following questions:
• What reform trends are relevant in the public administrations of the Nordic countries, and how have they developed, and in what context?
• What institutional features characterize the state authorities in these countries today—are they similar or different?
• What characterizes the role-identity, self-understanding, dominant values, and motivations of Nordic administrative executives?
• What characterizes the processes, trends, and content of reform in the Nordic countries?
• What is the relevance of different types of management instruments, and is there a special Nordic “mix” of such instruments?
• How important are different elements of NPM and post-NPM reforms in these countries, and do they work? What are their perceived effects?
• How did the Nordic countries deal with the financial crisis of 2008?
• Is there a Nordic administrative model and how is the perceived performance?
• How can we explain the differences and similarities?
The book is a coherent volume based on a unique data set and seeks to assess in comparative and quantitative terms the impact of New Public Management (NPM)-style reforms in the Nordic countries. The view is from the top, based on the assessments of administrative executives in nineteen European countries. The book presents results from a survey developed by a European research team in the largest comparative public management research project yet to be conducted in Europe: the COCOPS project—“Coordinating for Cohesion in the Public Sector of the Future,” funded by the European Commission’s Framework Programme 7. We present the first comprehensive analysis and survey results from the Nordic countries. The book also draws on other publications utilizing this unique data set—working papers and country reports from the COCOPS project (see http://www.cocops.eu/work-packages/ work-package-3), edited books (Hammerschmid et al. 2016), and book chapters (Hammerschmid et al. 2014; Wegrich and Stimac 2014; Curry et al. 2015). The book project is supported by the Nordic Councils of Ministers.
Public administration scholars have long underlined the need for more quantitative and rigorous comparative research, going beyond singlecountry, single-organization, and single-reform approaches. Studies of the effects and implications of different reform initiatives are especially scarce. Responding to such concerns, this book offers systematic evidence regarding the context, dynamics, and effects of public administration reform in the Nordic countries, with the goal of producing a comprehensive and systematic picture of public administration after twenty-five years of New Public Management (NPM) reforms.
Within the public management reform literature, the Nordic countries have for a long time been characterized as reluctant reformers or as “modernizers” more than “marketizers” (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011). In this book, we build on earlier work characterizing Nordic administrative
policy, especially comparative research on administrative reforms in the Nordic countries conducted in the 1990s (Lægreid and Pedersen 1994, 1999) and later studies that placed the Nordic model in a European perspective (Jacobsson et al. 2004). These suggested that the Nordic model was still thriving and represented a distinct approach to administrative reform. One important question is whether this is still the case today. To what degree has the traditional Nordic model of public administration been supplemented by New Public Management reform initiatives, or what have more recently been labeled post-NPM reform trends? Are the Nordic countries moving towards a Neo-Weberian state model, as claimed by Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011), and if they are, what constitutes such a model? Are they increasingly moving towards a “management bureaucracy” (Hall 2012) or a “managerial state” (Clarke and Newman 1997), or are we seeing increased complexity and hybridity in a layering process of different reform trends (Pollitt 2016)? Have the Nordic countries always taken a Weberian approach?
The main contribution of the book is to analyze the current relevance and processes of administrative reforms and management instruments as well as the perceived impact of reforms on public management. It evaluates the effect of NPM on performance as well as on tendencies towards fragmentation in the public sector and the resulting need for coordination. In addition, it focuses on the impact of the financial crisis on administrative arrangements in the Nordic countries.
CENTRAL CONCEPTS AND REFORM TRAJECTORIES: DIVERGENCE OR CONVERGENCE?
Public sector reform indicates change. Not all changes are a result of reforms, however. Think of the changes driven by technological, demographic, or economic factors, for instance. In this book, we see reform as deliberate and intentional change, based on a plan or a program conceived by political or administrative executives. This understanding is narrower than non-intentional change. It also indicates that reforms do not necessarily result in actual change. Some reforms look nice in the world of ideas but run into problems when it comes to adopting or implementing them, and the effects may not be what the reform agent expected. We therefore need to distinguish between ideas and programs, decisions, implementation, and practice. One cannot assume a tight coupling between “talk” and action (Pollitt 2001; March 1986; Brunsson 1989).
There is also an important distinction between administrative reform and policy reform. The first kind focuses on the internal architecture of the administrative apparatus, such as formal structure and changes in procedures. Policy reforms address policy content and measures directed towards users of public sector services more directly. In this book, the focus is on administrative reforms and not on policy reforms or changes in general. Some administrative reforms can be “big bang” reforms, while others are more incremental. “Big bang” reforms are reforms that proclaim a new approach, for example the “modernization program” in Denmark launched in the 1980s (Ejersbo and Greve 2014), the “Big Society” promised by the UK government in 2011, and more recently the “Smarter State” also promoted by the Cameron government.
Both in the literature about public sector reform and in practice, there has been considerable debate about the central concepts and main governance paradigms and how they relate to each other. To put it briefly, concepts such as “marketization” and “managerialism” dominated the discussion in the 1990s and early 2000s (Hood 1991; Christensen and Lægreid 2011a). In his seminal article, Christopher Hood (1991) described how a new type of governance based on market-type mechanisms and use of managerial techniques from the private sector—New Public Management—had shaped and influenced developments in the public administrations of the UK, Australia, and New Zealand in the 1980s. There were similar accounts of reforms in the United States and Canada (Aucoin 1990). In the United States, the term “reinventing government” was used to describe the reforms under Clinton/Gore (Kettle 2000). Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) picked up on this conceptualization and distinguished between, on the one hand, a core NPM group in Europe represented by the UK known as “the marketizers,” and on the other continental European countries like Belgium, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany (below the federal level), which they termed the “modernizers.” This group also included the Nordic countries. Compared with the Nordic countries, the Southern European countries were characterized as “latecomers” to NPM reform (Ongaro 2009).
The impression at the time was that a new paradigm—NPM—was threatening the “old public administration” (see also Dunleavy and Hood 1994). The public sector was seen as bureaucratic, inefficient, and not responsive enough to the needs of citizens or business. The relatively simple answer was to break down the perceived monolithic public sector into smaller units and give them missions to pursue, while at the same
time supporting them with managerial techniques from the private sector. Executive agencies flourished in the NPM era (Verhoest et al. 2012). A huge source of inspiration at the time were business books like Peters and Waterman’s In Search of Excellence (1982), which related how business processes could be honed and optimized if only organizations were allowed to pursue excellence. As NPM grew stronger, it evolved into what Donald Kettle (2000) termed “the global public management revolution” after he found evidence of marketization and managerialism in a number of countries around the world.
NPM was intended to streamline organizations and make them more mission-oriented. However, in this endeavor the reforms also made the public sector increasingly complex, with more and more organizations pursuing competing missions. Another issue that NPM had not bargained on was the growing occurrence of “wicked problems” (and the problems of attending to these), and it was also ill-equipped to deal with the major issues confronting governments around the world, such as climate change, environment, labor market policy, and healthcare (Head and Alford 2015; Lægreid et al. 2015). Governments were increasingly collaborating with both private sector companies and with non-government organizations (NGOs) in complex network structures. New ways of collaborating to meet common challenges turned networks and partnerships into potentially attractive structures for public sector managers. A number of scholars noted this trend back in the late 1990s, notably Rhodes in his book Understanding Governance (Rhodes 1997) and the Dutch “network scholars” (Kickert et al. 1997). Since the late 1990s, there has been considerable scholarly discussion concerning the extent and importance of such networks. Most scholars agree, however, that such trends have far from eradicated NPM.
Some of the debate on networks and partnerships was summarized by Stephen Osborne (2009, 2011) in his now well-known account of The New Public Governance (NPG). In the wake of this publication, NPG has become a convenient and short-hand abbreviation for many things: networks, partnerships, and collaborative structures and processes. The label has, however, yet to be clearly defined. Klijn and Koppenjan (2015), for example, use the term “governance network perspective” to portray a dominant perspective that is separate from both the traditional public administration and the New Public Management approaches.
In the years that followed, the debate raged about whether NPM was “dead” (Dunleavy et al. 2006a, b) or still “alive and kicking” (Pollitt
2003a, b), and whether networks, partnerships, and the NPG perspective were the new paradigm to be used to examine most transformations in the public sector. One thing was clear: NPM was not “the only show in town” anymore. NPM’s strict focus on marketization and managerialism simply did not describe the reality that many public sector managers were living and experiencing in their daily practice. Scholars presented new findings that suggested that work structures were much more complex and that co-production was resulting in more engagement with citizens (Alford 2011) and more use of digital government tools that intersected with ordinary citizens’ lives (Dunleavy et al. 2006a, b). Another key observed trend was that many governments around the world were trying to take back some of the control they had relinquished to individual organizations and managers during the heyday of NPM (Dahlström et al. 2011).
Comparative analysis of public management reforms has shown that the idea of phases in which one global reform doctrine (for example NPM) is replaced by another (for example NPG) does not match the empirical landscape very well (Christensen and Lægreid 2011b; Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011; De Vries and Nemec 2013). One observation is that reform elements linked to one specific reform doctrine—agencification and transparency, for example—have a longer history in some countries. Here the Nordic countries stand out: In contrast to the trends in Anglo-Saxon countries, agencification has roots that go back to the sixteenth century in Sweden (Premfors 1991). The Nordic countries were also frontrunners in introducing transparency, freedom of information, and open government, which can be substantiated by reference to the annual ranking of countries in the Corruption Perception Index published by Transparency International (www.transparency. org). Another important observation is that the different reform trends become difficult to separate from each other when one looks at their specific tools and measures. They are often not mutually exclusive (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011) but rather loose and expanding concepts (Lægreid 2015).
The later research debate then centered on what was happening to NPM and concluded that it was certainly not the dominant paradigm anymore. However, it was difficult to say what came after NPM. Currently, there is no consensus about what has supplemented NPM. Some notable scholars have begun to address a “post-NPM” paradigm or a “whole of government” scenario characterized by a reassertion of central government in
response to the fragmentation brought by NPM, a greater focus on coordination and the horizontal challenge (overcoming bureaucratic and policy “silos”), and a trend towards larger organizational units and strengthening the political capacity of governments (Christensen and Lægreid 2007b, 2011b). Some of the same issues were raised by Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011) when they proposed the concept of “the Neo-Weberian State” (NWS), in which traditional bureaucratic values are recognized alongside a continuing focus on performance-based management and efficient service delivery to citizens. NWS signals a “friendlier” but more efficient state. The concept was originally meant to be a North European alternative to the more Anglo-centered perspective of marketization and managerialism associated with NPM. The Neo-Weberian State takes a more positive attitude towards the public sector and a less positive attitude towards the private sector and underlines the role of representative democracy and administrative law (Christensen and Lægreid 2012). Compared to traditional bureaucracy this perspective focuses more on citizens’ needs, performance, and the professionalization of public service. Citizens’ participation is claimed to be a more prominent characteristic of the Nordic countries compared with France, Italy, and Belgium, which have been seen as managerial-oriented modernizers. However, the Nordic countries are not only modernizers following user-responsiveness and managerial strategies but have also to some extent adopted competition and marketization strategies, albeit scoring low on privatization (Foss Hansen 2011).
Some scholarly work has also focused on reform pace. At one end of the spectrum there are slow-moving systems and reluctant reformers, such as federal Germany. At the other end, there are fast-pace reformers such as the UK. The Nordic countries are often placed in between. The inbetweeners typically need time to gather the necessary political consensus for reforms. Here, reforms tend to be less radical but they have a good chance of long-term survival and successful implementation (Christensen and Lægreid 2012). Southern European countries, such as Spain, Portugal and Italy, which are characterized by a legalistic and formalistic tradition and a politicized administration, have been placed outside this spectrum, since public management reforms there have had a hard time gaining any kind of foothold (Ongaro 2009; Kickert 2011).
In recent years, most scholars have emphasized that a focus on one of the governance paradigms, be it NPM, NPG, NWS, or post-NPM, does not necessarily mean that the others are obsolete. A main finding has been that administrative reforms have not taken place along a single dimension.
In practice we face mixed models and increased complexity. In line with lessons from institutional theory (both the sociological and the historical variant) (see Peters 2011), one paradigm is not exchanged for another very quickly. Paradigms tend to co-exist as the public sector becomes (even more) complex. International organizations like the OECD have also noted this trend. They have issued reports with titles like “Value for Money: Public Administration after New Public Management” (2010b) and “Together for Better Public Services” (2011). Taken together, these findings make it all the more interesting to examine the mix of governance paradigms and mechanisms in individual jurisdictions.
THE DRIVERS OF REFORMS: PUBLIC MANAGEMENT REFORM DEVELOPMENT MODELS
As explained in the previous section, public management reforms consist of many interrelated elements. This next section considers different ways to study developments in public management reform.
Pollitt and Bouckaert’s (2011, p. 33) model is perhaps one of the most well-known conceptualizations of the reform process. It brings together a number of related elements—(a) socio-economic factors, (b) the political system, (c) crises and unexpected events, (d) elite decision-making, and (e) the administrative system—to explain variations across countries. They envisage a process whereby political actors address a certain socioeconomic challenge and elite decision-makers decide how to deal with it. There is a risk that unpredictable events (terrorist attacks, the global financial crisis, the migration crisis) may influence the process, but normally the content of the reform package and its implementation is expected to lead to desirable results and take place within the administrative system. Pollitt and Bouckaert emphasize that reforms in different countries may follow different trajectories and are prone to be influenced by the historical-institutional features of those countries. They also assert that public management reforms are generally open to contradictions, tradeoffs, balances, and dilemmas.
The inherently political nature of reforms and their consequences is also a theme running through the work of Beryl Radin (2012), who talks about contradictions in public management reforms. Radin and others like her remain skeptical towards reformers who think that reforms will be a smooth ride and that a technical approach to performance-based management can solve some of the tensions of government policy. International
organizations were typically criticized for painting too optimistic a picture of reform potential (“the OECD story” as Premfors (1998) used to call it), but in recent years organizations like the OECD have issued more cautious and realistic assessments of reform developments and have themselves developed more sophisticated tools and measurements to allow a more nuanced view of reforms (see, for example, the OECD Better Life index, www.betterlifeindex.org). Researchers are therefore inclined to look for contradictions and dilemmas wired into government reform efforts.
Another coherent approach to studying public management reform has been the transformative approach. This approach was first articulated by Christensen and Lægreid (2001) and has been used in subsequent studies of public management reforms, especially in the Nordic countries. This is the approach used by this book. The transformative approach sees public sector reform and the ability of the political-administrative leadership to design and redesign the systems as dependent on three sets of contexts that constrain the decisions and actions of public management reform leaders: (a) the formal structural context; (b) the cultural context; and (c) the environmental context, consisting of both the technical and the institutional environment (Lægreid and Verhoest 2010, pp. 6–10; Christensen and Lægreid 2007a). The approach assumes that political-administrative actors pursue reform goals in a purposeful manner but also acknowledges that various kinds of constraints will exist and so reform results are likely to be different than expected. External reform programs are filtered, interpreted, and modified by a combination of two national processes: the country’s political-administrative history, culture, and traditions; and national policy features, as expressed in constitutional and structural factors. Within these constraints, political and managerial executives have varying degrees of leeway to launch, decide on, and implement different administrative reforms via an active administrative policy.
We can conclude that there are many routes to reform and that there is therefore no single-factor explanation for or understanding of the processes and effects of administrative reforms in all situations, at all times, and everywhere (Hood 1991; Pollitt 2001, 2013a, b; Lægreid and Verhoest 2010). Each country’s mix of structural, cultural, and environmental contexts influences how international reform ideas and paradigms are transformed into public action on the ground (Christensen and Lægreid 2013). We therefore expect a heterogeneous picture of reform and not a “one-size-fits-all” model that some of the more streamlined global perspectives have envisaged.
This means, first, that we should stop searching for catch-all generic theories, and second, that we need to take contextual factors into account and ascribe greater importance to national historical-institutional cultures and traditions.
THE EFFECTS OF REFORM
It is a paradox that while many of the contemporary administrative reforms are supposed to produce better results along many dimensions such as efficiency, effectiveness, and service quality, knowledge about their effects is rather uncertain and contested. NPM has been around for thirty years, yet there have been few comparative evaluations. Instead, NPM scholars have been preoccupied with the reform process, examining the forces driving the reforms while merely speculating about their impact on efficiency and service quality. Effects are often assumed or promised, but there have been few systematic and reliable studies of whether they actually happen. As stated by Pollitt and Bouckaert (2011, p. 159), the NPM reforms do not seem to need results in order to march on. Evidence of efficiency gains has been patchy and incomplete (Andrew 2010), and systematic quantitative empirical investigations over time have been lacking. The result is that there is little hard evidence of whether NPM’s main goal of cost reduction and improved efficiency has actually been realized, leaving good, reliable, and longitudinal data on the effects of NPM reforms wanting.
One important exception to this is a study by Hood and Dixon (2015) on the effects of NPM reforms in the UK over a thirty-year period. Their book A Government That Worked Better and Cost Less? examines the main hypothesis that NPM reforms would enhance the quality and reduce the costs of public administration. The authors address the paradox that the NPM movement, which was legitimized by a performance argument, in practice was often ideologically driven, pressing ahead with reforms with little regard for confirmation of their efficacy. The UK was one of the first countries to adopt NPM reforms and did so more radically than many other countries. It is therefore a good test case of the NPM hypothesis. If clear cost reductions and quality improvements are to be found anywhere, they ought to be found in the UK. The main finding is that, after three decades of NPM, the UK does not have “a government that works better and costs less.” In fact, the government now works slightly worse with respect to fairness, and costs a bit more than before. Also, the running costs are higher and there are more complaints. Hood and Dixon’s
book represents one of the first systematic evaluations of three decades of reform and is clearly an important reference for future studies of administrative reforms.
Andrews (2010) came to a similar conclusion—that there is weak quantitative evidence that NPM reforms have led to a general improvement in cost-efficiency. Dunleavy and Carrera (2013) showed that NPM strategies such as contracting-out and privatization increased long-term productivity in the public sector only slightly. Based on the COCOPS project, Pollitt and Dan (2013) did a meta-analysis of 519 studies of the output and outcome effects of NPM reforms in Europe. Their conclusion was that our knowledge of effects is weak overall. Most studies have examined effects on activities and processes. A minority have examined output, and only very few have addressed the outcomes of the reforms. The results from different countries and policy sectors show a mixed pattern depending on contextual features such as time horizon, the scope of reforms, and the degree of political salience. A recent study by Dan and Pollitt (2015), however, concluded that NPM could work in Central and Eastern European countries under specific conditions but this optimistic conclusion is contested by Drechsler and Randma-Liiv (2015).
Overall, the findings from the available studies support NPM skeptics more than NPM advocates, although they do not confirm the most radical expectations on either side. When analyzing effects we seem to have to go beyond a narrow concept of effects that focuses on only one set of values such as efficiency and productivity. We also need to address effects on equity, equality, fairness, social cohesion, service quality, and societal effects in general. Thus, internal administrative and operational effects, process effects, and system effects are of interest (Pollitt and Bouckaert 2011).
ADMINISTRATIVE TRADITIONS IN EUROPE AND THE NORDIC MODEL
Different authors have tried to classify and categorize different administrative traditions in Europe. Different families, groups, and hybrids have been identified. Painter and Peters (2010) distinguish between an Anglo-American, a Napoleonic, a Germanic, a Soviet, and a Scandinavian group of countries. Kuhlmann and Wollmann (2014) distinguish between a continental Napoleonic model, a continental federal model, an AngloSaxon model, a Scandinavian model, and an Eastern European model.
Another random document with no related content on Scribd:
before him if I were you—that is, if you happen to remember—it isn’t important. Good-night.
To Mr Selbourne.—I’m glad they’re coming by the afternoon train, everything is so lovely in that light. And I’m satisfied about the rooms. Men are always easy to entertain. I wish we could get that man up from Denver, for the piano is dreadfully in need of tuning, and I do want to have some good music while they are here. You know Nannie—Arthur, are you asleep? Well!
VII.
.
Miss Forsythe and Mr. Fairfax.
Miss Forsythe.—Yes, of course. But ever since the great baseball game you have been one of Billy’s heroes, and—
Mr. Fairfax. Billy’s?
Miss Forsythe.—Oh, I beg your pardon. “Poin,” I meant to say.
Mr. Fairfax.—But why did you say “Billy”? And who is Billy? And why did you beg my pardon?
Miss Forsythe.—Billy is my pet name for Poin. You know he went to Williams, and was so fond of it I called him Billy. Almost all my friends before that were Harvard men.
Mr. Fairfax.—But why did you beg my pardon?
Miss Forsythe.—I—Mr. Fairfax, forgive me if I hurt you, but I can only explain by telling you frankly that before you came, Mrs. Selbourne cautioned me—I don’t know why—against using that name before you. She said it held associations for you—and I thought—
Mr. Fairfax.—You thought?
Miss Forsythe.—That perhaps there was some one you had loved —and lost—
Mr Fairfax.—No; not that. I am inclined to think the associations are with some one I have loved and found. I will tell you that story some other day. Meantime, you were saying—?
VIII.
- .
Mrs. Selbourne, Mrs. Simms, Miss Forsythe, Mr. Fairfax, and Dr. Ellis, all intently regarding a large box that has just been brought up from the express office.
Mrs. Selbourne.—We can’t open it until Arthur comes home, for he has the key of the tool-closet in his pocket, and the cover is screwed on.
Miss Forsythe.—Oh, yes, we can. My screw driver is never to be found, and I always use a kitchen knife.
Mrs. Selbourne (aside, to Mr. Fairfax, as she passes him on her way to the kitchen).—This only means that I am a mercenary woman, and take comfort in the most incipient stages of lovemaking.
Mr. Fairfax.—To me it means that you are an angel.
IX.
“ .”
Mr. Fairfax and Miss Forsythe.
Mr. Fairfax.—And when I woke up you were talking about Billy and the ranch, and I fell in love then and there with the sweetest voice and the dearest girl in all the world.... And it was our Adams, after all. He’s abroad now with Vandewater. I suppose you’ve heard that story about Van, and the girl he’s proposed to annually for the last six years?
Miss Forsythe.—Yes, I’ve known him all my life.
Mr Fairfax.—Well, can you tell who the girl is?
Miss Forsythe.—No, I can’t.
.
The Rev. Arthur Selbourne.—Forasmuch as Robert and Polly have consented together in holy wedlock, and have witnessed the same before God and this company; and, thereto, have given and pledged their troth each to the other; and have declared the same by giving and receiving a ring, and by joining hands; I pronounce that they are man and wife in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
ADVERTISEMENTS
AYER’S COMPOUND CONCENTRATED EXTRACT OF SARSAPARILLA
The Only Sarsaparilla
Awarded a medal at the World’s Fair, Chicago, 1893, was Ayer’s Sarsaparilla
The medal medicine is the model medicine It is the great blood purifier of the age
Use no other
COLONIAL HOUSES were built on the beautiful lines and harmonious, restful proportions our grandfathers borrowed from the Greeks. Our ancestors had taste if they did not have telephones. If you are going to build, and are tired of the phantasms of sawmills, but want instead a beautiful, ideal home, send for
Our new ’96 edition of “Colonial Houses.”
Shows really correct, artistic designs in the inimitable Colonial Style, but with modern and complete interiors. Price by mail, $2.
Artistic One-Story Houses.—Showing Summer Homes costing between $400 and $4000; price, $2. Low cost Barns and Stables, 50 cents, by mail. Address,
CHILD & De GOLL, Architects, No 62 New Street, NEW YORK
“This very readable story is fresh, bright, graphic, deeply pathetic, eloquent, powerful,” says the New York Times, of “A Singular Life,”
MISS PHELPS’S wonderful novel which everybody is reading. Price, $1.25. It can be had of the Booksellers, or sent by the publishers,
Houghton, Mifflin & Co , Boston, Mass
The Only Perfectly Seamless Heel ELASTIC STOCKINGS
For Varicose Veins, Weak Knees and Ankles, Lame and Swollen Joints.
Recommended by Physicians over all other makes They Neither RIP NOR CHAFE.
For daily comfort, wear our SEAMLESS HEEL
We can save YOU 50 per cent., by ordering direct from us, and the goods being newly made (to your measure) ensures long wear. Send address and we will mail to you diagrams for self-measuring also price list.
The best Russet or Patent Leather Polish in the world, used and recommended by the best dealers.
Not only polishes but preserves the shoes. Take no other if you would save your shoes from cracking. For both Ladies’ and Gentlemen’s Shoes. All dealers, or by mail for 15 cents per box.
C L HAUTHAWAY & SONS,
346 Congress St Boston, Mass.
STANDARD OF THE WORLD
Manufacturing Co. Makers. Hartford. Conn.
Columbia Bicycles
Pope
Burning up fat
A man is all the time burning up fat This fat has got to be in as constant supply as the air he breathes Every minute of life depends on it It has got to come from somewhere; if it does not come from the food direct, it comes from the fat stored up in the body. It gets stolen without his knowing it; but his friends tell him of it. They say: “You are getting thin. You are not looking well.” They are right; but they do not recognize the full significance of what they are saying.
If you are not getting the fat you need from your usual food you are getting thin. One can go on losing fat a little while with no more serious harm than some discomfort to himself, and the causing of some anxiety to his friends But there is danger ahead You must have a food you can get fat from Cod-liver oil is that food It is as truly a food as if it were nothing more
Scott’s Emulsion
is cod-liver oil made easy In it the oil is broken up into particles finer than water drops in cloud or fog The work of digestion partly done beforehand The tiny drops of oil slip easily through the wall of the intestines into the blood
This is the reason why “Scott’s Emulsion” produces plumpness when common food, or even cod-liver oil, is ineffectual.
“Just as good” is not SCOTT’S EMULSION
GET RICH QUICKLY A FORTUNE IN AN HOUR
Can be made by inventing something new. Send for list of 100 INVENTIONS WANTED And patent book free.
Patents procured through us sold without charge.
EDGAR TATE & CO ,
Solicitors of United States and Foreign Patents, Trade Marks, Designs, and Copyrights.
245 Broadway, New York.
Branch Houses in all Countries.
Dr PARKHURST in the Independent, Dec 12, 1895:
“The value of a machine is not in the exquisiteness or even the antiquity of its build, but in the amount of good work it will turn out. ”
Measured by this Standard, the Caligraph Typewriter
Is Absolutely without a Peer.
“It Outlasts Them All.”
Our illustrated Catalogue for 1896 will be sent on request. Ask also for sample book of Typewriter Papers
American Writing Machine Co., 237 Broadway, N. Y.
Who cares for PUBLIC OPINION! What we all want is SATISFACTION.
If the Daugherty-Visible Typewriter suits you, buy one and pay for it, and let some one else buy any old make simply because “it’s the oldest made,” or “it claims everything,” or it shows a cut turned sidewise as “view in use,” or it’s “Perfection.”
We want you to have a machine on trial Be your own judge Catalogues and machines on application to The Daugherty Typewriter Company, of Pittsburg, Penn Factory at Kittanning, Pa
Price $75.00
T
T E
Send for Catalogue.
$25.00 to $65.00
REMINGTON, CALIGRAPH, HAMMOND, SMITH PREMIER, DENSMORE, YOST, ETC
Rentals $3 50 to $5 00 per month
Four Stores: 1½ Barclay St., New York; 156 Adams St., Chicago; Court Sq., Boston; 818 Wyandotte St., Kansas City.
Consumption AND ITS CURE
T E : I have an absolute remedy for Consumption By its timely use thousands of hopeless cases have been already permanently cured So proofpositive am I of its power that I consider it my duty to send two bottles free to those of your readers, who have Consumption, Throat, Bronchial or Lung Trouble, if they will write me their express and postoffice address. Sincerely,
T. A. SLOCUM, M. C., 183 Pearl St., New York. In writing please say you saw this in The Black Cat
IF YOU’RE A PIPE SMOKER A TRIAL
W C G S IS PERFECTION
SEND 10cts FOR S P PRICES 1lb 1 30; ¼lb 40cts POSTAGE PAID, CATALOGUE FREE S , 159 F S , N Y C
The Imperial Hair Regenerator
NO MATTER HOW GRAY YOUR HAIR IS OR BLEACHED OR SPOILED BY DYES MAKES IT BEAUTIFUL, NATURAL, HEALTHY
Restores Gray Hair to the Color of Youth.
Regenerates Bleached Hair
Gives it new life and vigor, and makes it any color desired.
It is guaranteed by court tests absolutely harmless—and genuine. There are many worthless imitations. Refuse to take them.
No 1 Black
No. 2. Dark Brown.
No 3 Medium Brown
No. 4. Chestnut.
No 5 Light Chestnut
No. 6. Gold Blonde.
No 7 Ash Blonde
PRICE, $1 50 and $3 00
Send a sample of your hair, and we will restore its color free of charge.
IMPERIAL CHEMICAL MFG CO
292 Fifth Avenue, New York
All Druggists and Hairdressers
THE APEX OF Bicycle Perfection
is represented in the Monarch All the bicycle goodness that the best bicycle makers know is incorporated in this king of wheels. No chronometer could be made with more care, or with greater accuracy. Every part of the
Monarch
is in perfect harmony with all other parts So perfect is the distribution of weight, so accurate the adjustment of gear, that the Monarch will outspeed, outlast, outrival, any wheel on the market to-day.
Made in 4 models $80 and $100 For children and adults who want a lower priced wheel the Defiance is made in 8 models, $40, $50, $60 and $75 Send for the Monarch book
MONARCH CYCLE MFG. CO., Lake, Halsted & Fulton Sts., CHICAGO. 83 Reade St., New York.
Our Mammoth New 1896 Flower Seed Offer. A Magnificent Collection of FLOWER SEEDS Over 300 Varieties FREE A WHOLE FLOWER GARDEN WITHOUT COST!
An unparalleled Offer by an Old-Established and Reliable Publishing House! T L ’ W is a large, 24-page, 96-column illustrated Magazine for ladies and the family circle, with elegant cover printed in colors It is devoted to Stories, Poems, Ladies’ Fancy Work, Home Decoration, Housekeeping, Fashions, Hygiene, Juvenile Reading, Etiquette, Out-of-Door Recreations, etc To introduce this charming ladies’ magazine into 100,000 homes where it is not already taken, we now make the following colossal offer: Upon receipt of only Thirty Cents in silver, stamps or money order (the regular subscription price), we will send The Ladies’ World for the Remainder of this Year (April to December inclusive), and to each subscriber we will also send, Free and post-paid, a large and magnificent Collection of Choice Flower Seeds, over 300 varieties, as follows:
1 Packet Blood Red Castor Bean (Ricinus Sanguineus). Very large, rapid growing ornamental foliage plant of tropical appearance Stems and leaves deep blood red Height 6 feet
1 Packet New Fireball Dianthus. This beautiful new dwarf Pink is a distinct novelty. The plants are covered with brilliant, rose-red double flowers during the summer and through the fall.
1 Packet Venus Looking Glass (Specularia Speculum) The name of this plant signifies “a mirror,” indicating the unusual shining brightness of the lovely blue flowers Grows about 9 inches high
1 Packet Phlox Drummondii. Lovely, brilliant flowers. Nothing can surpass them for beds, on account of their richness and variety of color, profusion and duration of bloom.
1 Packet Poppy, mixed. A grand collection of this popular favorite, including the Mikado, Cardinal, American Flag, Mephisto, Flag of Truce and many other rare and beautiful sorts.
1 Packet Comet Aster, mixed A superb new variety, with large double flowers, having incurved petals, resembling the finest Japanese Chrysanthemums The mixture includes Snow-White, Rose, Sky-Blue, and many other beautiful colors
1 Packet Blanket Flower (Gaillardia picta). Very large flowers, two to three inches across, in beautiful shades of color. Showy, free-blooming plants, one to two feet high.
1 Packet Rose Queen Convolvulus (Convolvulus tri-color roseus) Beautiful dwarf variety, of bright rose color, with white center, fringed purple, and shading toward golden yellow.
1 Packet Lobb’s Nasturtium (Tropæolum Lobbianum). Remarkable for brilliancy of color and profusion of bloom The flowers, lasting from early summer until frost, exhibit every shade, from creamy-white to fiery scarlet, striped, spotted, etc
